Getting noticed - Dynamic Legal Forms

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Getting noticed
SEO strategies are working wonders for small law firms
with big ambitions.
What’s New In...
Legal Technology
By Pablo Fuchs
etting noticed is half the battle when it comes to promoting a business. But throwing
money at a state-of-the-art
website isn’t enough. It takes
time and effort to improve a firm’s visibility, particularly online, where the
name of the game is getting on Page 1 of
the main search engine sites. Fortunately, it’s a game where size doesn’t matter: small and solo firms can compete
with bigger fish, and significantly grow
their market.
The key to boosting traffic to a firm’s
site is search engine optimization. SEO
helps Google, Yahoo or Bing find and
rank individual websites higher than
other sites in response to a search query.
In a nutshell, it involves coding in keywords and consistently uploading relevant material to your website that will
generate links from other sites. This ensures that the search engines’ “crawlers”
or “spiders” — software that follows
links from one website to another and
indexes everything it finds in its way —
discover your website and assign it the
highest possible ranking through keyword searches.
“Having a website that is not optimized for search
engines is akin to having a billboard in the middle of the
desert,” says Cory Kinley, a principal with Edmontonbased JustLaw Online, an SEO consultancy for the legal
community. “No one will ever see it.”
That would be a wasted opportunity. “Before, when
it came to TV and radio, small law firms could not have
competed with those law firm conglomerates,” says Eric
Rabkin, an international investment arbitration counsel
who founded ICSID Lawyers in Toronto in May 2010.
“Now, with the internet, creativity, ingenuity and hard
work, you can actually outrank far larger entities and
their deep pockets.”
Rabkin’s practice focuses on the emerging field of
international investment arbitration, which involves foreign investors who sue governments via the International
Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) or
ROBERT JOHANNSEN
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Septembre 2011
other forums. By securing “Having a website that is not
the name ICSID Lawyers, optimized for search engines
and obtaining the domain
name icsidlawyers.com, he is akin to having a billboard in
has positioned his firm to the middle of the desert.”
rank high when the key- — Cory Kinley
words “ICSID lawyers” or
JustLaw Online
“ICSID experts” are entered on Google.
What’s more, thanks to sophisticated SEO strategies,
Rabkin has earned the top ranking when the keywords
“international investment arbitration law firm” are
entered — without any mention of ICSID. He’s ahead of
New York-based Dewey & LeBouef LLP — an impressive feat for a 33-year-old sole practitioner whose
resources pale in comparison to a firm with 26 offices
around the globe.
w w w. c b a . o r g
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Quoi de neuf en...
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en technologie juridique
L’art de se faire remarquer
Les stratégies d’optimisation pour les moteurs de recherche font des miracles
pour les petits cabinets qui voient loin.
A
ttirer l’attention en promouvant
son organisation est incontournable, mais il ne faut pas se contenter d’injecter de l’argent dans un site
Web du dernier cri. En recourant à l’optimisation pour les moteurs de recherche (SEO), les petits cabinets peuvent améliorer leur visibilité et élargir
leur marché.
Le référencement SEO aide les moteurs de recherche comme Google,
Yahoo et Bing à établir votre présence
sur le web à partir d’une requête en
ligne. Cela implique l’utilisation de
codes dans des mots-clés pour votre site
et un téléchargement constant de contenu pertinent qui générera des liens à
partir d’autres sites. Les robots des
moteurs de recherche — des logiciels
qui répertorient tout ce qu’ils balaient
sur internet — peuvent ainsi trouver
votre site et lui réserver le meilleur
classement possible à partir de recherches par mots-clés.
Selon l’associé Cory Kinley de JustLaw
Online à Edmonton, un site non optimisé équivaut à un panneau publicitaire
dans le désert que personne ne verra.
Ça serait dommage. En effet, les technologies de l’information font en sorte
que l’avocat solo peut maintenant concurrencer les grands cabinets du monde,
de l’avis d’Eric Rabkin, le fondateur de
ICSID Lawyers à Toronto. Celui-ci se spécialise en arbitrage d’investissement
international, un champ de pratique
émergeant, où il s’agit de conseiller des
investisseurs étrangers qui poursuivent
en justice les gouvernements par l’intermédiaire de l’International Centre for
Settlement of Investment Disputes
(ICSID). En réservant le nom ICSID Lawyers et le nom de domaine icsidlawyers.
com, il a obtenu une grande visibilité
avec les mots-clés
« ICSID lawyers » ou « ICSID experts ».
Du coup, les clients le trouvent.
Pour les niches
Michael Carabash, le fondateur et associé
de DMC Law, cabinet spécialisé en droit
à l’intention des dentistes à Toronto, est
le seul avocat à recruter 100 % de ses
clients en ligne. Grâce à des stratégies
de référencement musclées, son cabinet
apparaît en tête des résultats de
recherche sur Google avec les requêtes
« dentist lawyers » et autres.
Mes Rabkin et Carabash se sont familiarisés avec les stratégies de référencement SEO et passent beaucoup de
temps quotidiennement pour rester à
jour dans leur domaine d’expertise,
bloguer et écrire sur les réseaux sociaux.
Me Carabash poste aussi des vidéos sur
YouTube.
Steve Matthews, fondateur et associé chez Stem Legal, recommande aux
avocats de publier régulièrement dans
leur domaine d’expertise pour atteindre
That cachet on the internet has ensured the growth of
ICSID Lawyers, Rabkin says: “Ultimately, clients find me
online.” As a result of his SEO efforts, Rabkin has brought in
business from international clients located in India, Germany,
Kyrgyzstan, Georgia and the United States.
Marketing niche practices
Michael Carabash, founding partner of DMC Law, a boutique
dental law firm in Toronto is also finding success online. “I’m
the only lawyer I know who gets 100 per cent of his clients
online. I have no competitive advantage in the traditional marketing realm,” he says.
A business lawyer who started out as a generalist, Carabash
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le succès.
En vue d’être plus visible en ligne,
Terry Edwards, directeur général à
Kelowna chez Pushor Mitchell, a commencé à publier 10 ans de contenu de
bulletins de nouvelles. Plusieurs
groupes de pratique commencent
aussi à bloguer en alternance. Résultat? Augmentation du trafic vers le
site, meilleur classement en ligne et
plus de clients.
Waterstone de Langley & Chilliwack, en Colombie britannique, a décroché jusqu’à 80 % d’augmentation
de trafic sur son site grâce au référencement. En outre, le contenu du blogue British Columbia Injury Lawyers a
joué en sa faveur.
Patience et le mot juste
La stratégie SEO est un processus continu qui exige beaucoup de travail. Au
début, le plus grand défi est de trouver
du temps pour alimenter son blogue,
une clé pour le référencement. La mise
en œuvre d’une telle stratégie n’apportera pas des résultats immédiats,
mais à force de patience, toutes les
actions menées dès la première année
finiront par porter des fruits. En effet,
être bien positionné sur Google peut
prendre des mois, pourvu qu’on choisisse avec soin les mots vendeurs à l’attention de ses clients. N
— Yasmina El Jamaï
ultimately decided to create a niche law firm that focuses on
business law for dentists. Employing a robust set of SEO strategies has ensured that his firm pops up among the top results in
Google when someone enters “dentist lawyers” or a variety of
similar terms. “I targeted the business that I wanted rather than
going for everything that came in through the door,” he says.
Both Rabkin and Carabash have spent countless hours
teaching themselves what SEO strategies work. Understanding that search engines reward fresh, relevant content,
both dedicate hours every day to keeping on top of developments in their fields and blogging incessantly about them.
They also constantly update their social media accounts and,
in Carabash’s case, post videos on YouTube.
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“Search engines love blogs because they’re regularly updated, they provide recent commentary and are optimized for the
user,” Carabash says, insisting on the importance of taking the
time to produce good content.
Steve Matthews, founder and principal of Stem Legal,
advises lawyers to regularly publish content on the core topic
for which they want to be known. “Over time, that’s how
you’re going to make a connection with the audience. And if
you don’t publish, you won’t be successful.”
Terry Edwards, executive director at Kelowna firm Pushor
Mitchell LLP, says that his firm, in spite of strong legal brand
in the Okanagan region, felt a need to be more present online
“because there’s a shift taking place in how people are finding
lawyers.” Hoping to improve the rankings for individual
lawyers and the firm’s practice groups, the firm began by posting 10 years’ worth of content from its newsletters. Several
practice groups are now beginning to manage the blogging
process with lawyers providing content in rotation.
The aim was to grow the firm’s B.C. client base. The strategy paid off with a spike in traffic, higher search rankings and
more business. “Our search ranking is up across the board,
especially for practice areas. We had very good traffic before,
and we’ve seen a 26 per cent rise versus last year, which is
quite meaningful,” Edwards says. “We’ve had very solid client
files that have come to us because of our web presence, not
only from B.C., but from other parts of Canada as well.”
Waterstone Law Group of Langley and Chilliwack, B.C.,
are also reaping the rewards of big traffic and business gains.
“We’ve seen website traffic increase 70 per cent to 80 per cent
locally — and we’ve had triple the amount of files coming in
from the web because of our increased online presence,” says
Heidi Blaker, an administrator with the firm who oversaw the
implementation of its SEO strategy, starting in October 2010.
Like Pushor Mitchell, the strategy was launched to promote individual lawyers and practice groups, especially its
strong personal injury group. Not surprising, content has
played a considerable role: the launch of the British Columbia
Injury Lawyers Blog, for example, has led to a steady stream
of traffic.
A little patience… and the right words
The biggest challenge at the outset, Blaker says, was setting
aside enough time for writing blogs, which is the key to establishing an SEO strategy. But buy-in and cultural change are
required to succeed in establishing a solid web presence. Part
of that is accepting that an SEO strategy is “not a task to be
completed, but an ongoing process,” says Blaker.
And it requires having a set goal in terms of what you
want to achieve, and seeing it through to the end. “Have no
illusions: SEO is hard work,” says Rabkin. “Google doesn’t
give away prime rankings; you have to work for them — and
that’s only fair.”
Furthermore, implementation will not deliver immediate
dividends. All lawyers and experts say patience is a virtue and
that anything you do in Year 1 and beyond will pay off in the
future. “This is not a quick fix. It can take months to get
things positioned properly as Google takes time to crawl
through the content,” says Matthews.
In the meantime, firms should focus on speaking in the
language of their clients. In this respect SEO is no different
than traditional marketing: Success is about finding the words
that sell. N
SEO Resources
So you’ve decided to put time and effort into optimizing your webpage and you’re wondering how to
go about it. The number of SEO resources can be
overwhelming. Help is here! The following picks are
good, credible resources that will give you a solid
SEO introduction and make search engine optimization a little easier.
Books:
While most SEO books will be outdated by the time they are
published, these two books can give you the basic introduction
and background needed to take your SEO to the next level.
Marketing in the Age of Google — Vanessa Fox
Written by Google’s former Search Engine Strategy Spokesperson, this book cleverly illustrates search engine concepts for
people that are new to SEO.
The Art of SEO: Mastering Search Engine Optimization
— by Enge, Spencer, Fishkin and Stricchiola
This book, written by experts in the SEO and Digital Marketing
business, thoroughly covers the entire spectrum of the SEO
process, giving a good overview of both the basics and the best
practices. It’s a good next step after grasping the fundamentals
of SEO.
Blogs/Websites:
Socialmediaexaminer.com
This website gives clear guidance on how to use the various
social media tools. It provides daily articles and delivers educational summits on social media marketing. Check out its great
introduction to SEO strategies: http://www.socialmediaexaminer.
com/ultimate-bloggers-guide-to-search-engine-optimization/
Searchengineland.com
Here you will find news and information covering both search
engine marketing and the search engine industry. In the SEO section they have a brilliant periodic table of SEO concepts that
puts all the basic SEO ingredients on the grid. A must-see!
(www.searchengineland.com/seotable)
Seomoz.org
A free beginners guide to SEO written by Rand Fishkin. It’s a long
read, but well worth the 10 chapters of detailed information.
(http://www.seomoz.org/learn-seo)
Seroundtable.com
A resource to help keep you up-to-speed with SEO changes and
innovations. It reports on topics covered at search engine forums
around the world.
Pablo Fuchs is a freelance writer based in Toronto.
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